My hand flew in the air. “Check, please!”JaneyI can’t believe I invited Rafe back to my place after our date. For cheesecake.
Was it even a date? I mean he’d asked, and like he told that awful Katie woman, he picked me up and we laughed and flirted. It was a good first date. If it was a first date.
It was all very confusing.
“Make yourself comfortable,” I told him while I pulled the cheesecake from the fridge and grabbed the leftover bottle of white wine in the back.
“Does that mean take my shoes off, or undress down to my underwear?”
Just like that an image of Rafe in nothing but a pair of skintight boxer briefs danced in my mind. Then another image, one of me licking caramel off his chest. His abs.
“It means have a seat and grab the remote, Rafe.” The man worked so hard to rile me up I almost believed he got some kind of twisted pleasure out of the whole deal. “I don’t have any sports packages. Sorry.”
“That’s all right. I’m sure we’ll find something to watch. Any preferences?”
I searched for glasses to use, instead of the mason jars I used when I was alone. “Maybe music. Something unobtrusive so you can tell me about why you chose to run into burning buildings for a living.” It was a bold question, but if I wasn’t going to sleep with him, and I really wasn’t, then I needed to keep our minds and mouths occupied.
Rafe was silent for so long I thought maybe he’d fallen asleep. “We’re starting with the easy stuff, then?” There was amusement in his voice and it made me smile.
“That should be pretty easy. You obviously have a passion for it since you moved up the ranks, so tell me why.” It took two trips but I managed to get two giant slices of cheesecake and two overfilled glasses of wine to the coffee table without spilling.
“I guess I do, but I don’t know where it came from. It just seemed like something I’d be good at, helping people. Without a gun.”
“Guns make you squeamish?” That would be a twist down in these parts.
“No, just prefer that no one is shooting at me from one day to the next. But I wanted to help the community in some way, and firefighting seemed like the best option.”
I snorted. “It’s one of the most heroic jobs there is, put a little bit of love in your voice.”
“I do love it, and not just the rush of going into a fire and conquering it before it caused too much damage or wrecked too many lives. But it’s not some adrenaline rush, it’s a job. It’s a calling.”
Swoon. Was this guy for real, and where was the Rafe Montgomery I thought I knew all these years? “See? That’s what I’m talking about, there’s that passion!”
He flashed a smile at me and I swear my knees buckled even though I was sitting down. “Yeah? You like that?”
I shrugged. “It’s a cool job and all that, but it matters why you do it more than the fact that you do it.” And it was a turn on.
“What about you? Did you have dreams of becoming a paparazzi or one of those famous fashion photographers?” He shook his head with a wistful smile on his face. “I remember you always hid your face behind a camera.”
“You remember that?”
He nodded, a small smile on his lips. “I do.”
That surprised me, but it also pleased me. A lot. “Interesting.”
“Yeah?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I mean to know the great Rafe Montgomery was lowkey stalking me back in the day, it’s quite the ego boost.” Even though we both knew he needed no such boost. And he most definitely never stalked me.
“Stalking? Who said anything about stalking?”
“Not me. That was all you.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the put out expression he wore, like he was personally offended by the idea. “But it is nice to know.”
“I noticed you back then alright, but right now, I’m intrigued Janey. Very intrigued.”
“Me too, but is that a good enough reason to break your dating in town rules?”
“Is that some open secret around town?”
I shrugged. “Either that, or you know, you bat for the other team.” It took a moment for the words to register and when they did, I burst out laughing. “You asked.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not. But you’re so pretty we all assume you have a bunch of ships in the night kind of thing going on.”
“It’s not a rule, just a preference. But that’s before I realized I was wrong, and there are interesting women here in Tulip.” There was heat and sincerity in his eyes and I knew it was time for Rafe to go before I did something stupid.
“Now, that is definitely a line.”
He shrugged, “Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. Only time will tell, right?”